FOOTNOTES:
[23] “On the Threshold of the Unseen,” pp. 162, 163.
[24] “On the Threshold of the Unseen,” p. 322.
[25] “Spiritualism and the Christian Faith,” p. 47.
Chapter VII
IS THERE DANGER FROM THE OTHER SIDE?
Canon Barnes, in his excellent pamphlet, “Spiritualism and the Christian Faith,” warns the clergy against a line of opposing argument which would commit them to an acceptance of the mediæval system of demonology. We can confirm the testimony of Dr. Barnes that it is not uncommon to hear in Christian pulpits an admission that the medium can receive communications from another world, and to find this admission coupled with the suggestion that these communications are sent by evil spirits. We entirely agree with Dr. Barnes that the worst way of attacking Spiritualism is to admit its fundamental claim that communication with “spirits” can be set up, and then to assert that the “spirits” with whom intercourse is established are evil. “Such teaching attempts to combat Spiritualism by a revived belief in demonology.” The “danger from the other side” is of a different and more subtle nature. “No one at the present day,” writes Mr. Arthur E. Waite, “would desire to submit that a Spiritualist who receives at a séance that which, so far as his knowledge extends, is satisfactory evidence that he is holding some kind of communication with, let us suppose, a departed relative, is in reality being imposed upon by any satanic intelligence according to the conventional view; but it remains that he is assuming throughout the good faith of the other side of life, and that it is incapable of utilising particular means of knowledge in an unscrupulous way.” Trustworthy teachers of Spiritualism do not, in their own investigations, “assume the good faith of the other side of life.” The most serious warnings as to possible dangers to the inquirer come from men of high character and responsible position, who accept the tenets of Spiritualism.